3 October 2023

Saving your money as a student: try these three online tools to save on everyday goods

Welcome to part three of our revisited ‘Saving your money as a student’ article series – we hope you are finding these tips and tricks helpful in managing your budget.

So far, we’ve covered ways you can save on your energy bill and leverage rewards and discount schemes. This week, we take another look at tips from student Jasmine Lo regarding three online tools that can help you save money on various goods.

Check these out before you start your end-of-year shopping and save some funds to enjoy over the holidays (or put towards something useful in 2024)! 

During my time as a student, I’ve saved money on groceries, plus received discounted electronics and free software. Here are my top three recommendations for online tools that I have found useful for making my money go further.

1. Explore your education pricing options

First things first: take advantage of your Deakin email! There are numerous online retailers that offer discounts specifically for students. All you need to do is provide an email with the .edu domain.

I’ve been able to buy a new Samsung phone and MacBook Pro and save more than $200 on each item as both attract special deals for students. Optus, JB Hi-Fi, Spotify and Dell are some of the leading retailers that offer such discounts. Another tip is to Google the company you’re wanting to buy from and just put ‘student discount’ afterwards.

I am a film, TV and animation student so I use different programs and software. Many companies offer either free or highly-discounted licence prices for students. I simply search for the program online and see if they do student pricing. Sometimes you will have to provide a picture of your student ID so make sure you have a valid one. By following this advice, I found out I was eligible for a year of free access to Maya, an industry-standard program for 3D animation!

2. Find the right price with OzBargain

I swear by the OzBargain website. It is a forum fueled by the community which posts deals and bargains (hence the name!) to share with everyone.

There are many categories by which you can refine your search or look for a specific item. The website will tell you where it’s on sale and the sale price(s) available.

It might take a little time to get used to the layout, but it is very easy once you understand what you’re doing. I have saved an inestimable amount from checking this website regularly; my biggest saving from memory was a discount of around $500 on a TV from Big W.

3. Utilise website plugins and extensions

There are two types of plugins that I’ve been using to save extra money while online shopping: ‘coupon’ and ‘cashback’ plugins.

Coupon plugins work by applying various discount codes to the checkout automatically. I use Honey, which will show a pop-up that it has found codes and ask if I would like to apply them upon checkout. Please note it is US-based so it doesn’t always work with every store.

Through using a cashback plugin, I’ve accumulated a total savings tally of more than $130. The one I like to use is ShopBack, but there are others available (such as Cashrewards). When searching for brands online, ShopBack will tell me what % cashback I could get in the search engine results.

Another way it works is that I can go directly to the shop’s URL and the plugin will tell me I can ‘Activate Cashback’.

Happy saving!

Remember it’s important to do your own research to find out what savings and rewards programs are right for you. Go ahead and share this (plus any of your own handy savings tips) with a friend! 

Next week in our final ‘Saving your money as a student’ piece, we’ll look at super savings tricks for the supermarket. See you then!

Edited version of a previous Deakin Life blog. Our thanks to the Office of the Dean of Students for supporting the Deakin Money Matters project team to create these resources.